"Auntie Tiger" by the author Laurence Yep is an insightful retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood." It is a colorful picture book for young readers. Set in China, the book's main characters are a pair of argumentative sisters: Big Sister and Little Sister, respectively. While their mother leaves them alone in the house and instructs them not to open the door, a tiger comes to their house and pretends to be their Auntie. The wiser older girl is suspicious but the younger sister, greedy for treats, falls prey to the tiger's tricks and ultimately lets him in. She is eaten by the animal. The elder girl tricks the tiger by climbing up a tree, convincing him to fetch her some water and a bamboo stick. She tells him that she is coming down, and then pours the water on him while he has the stick in his mouth. She kills him and retrieves her younger sister. Once the mother comes home, all is well. The sisters stop fighting as a result of their ordeal with the beast and order is restored.
Obviously, the book instructs children to obey their parents, to minimize sibling arguments, to be on guard for those who would do you harm and to use your wits.
One insight that I has while reading this was the idea that the plots in children's literature can be really simple. I don't mean that disparagingly at all. Simple doesn't mean bad. Not at all. But this plot was nothing more than a simple retelling of an old classic.
Yep is a prolific writer. His genres include: historical fiction, speculative fiction, nonfiction, autobiography and picture books. He has written the "Golden Mountain Chronicles"--of which there are nine books to date, two of which were Newbery Honor books. He has written four books in his "Dragon" series and three books in his "Chinatown Mysteries" series. He has also written nine picture books.
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